Asp Forum - DHH vs. WHY style

Trans

4/25/2007 6:17:00 PM

Like to know others general opinions on having a comprehensive library
vs. independent libraries.

In my quest to make Facets' functionality available in some smaller
parts, I am left with hard choice. I think of it as the DHH vs. WHY
style question, b/c these two well known developers most clearly
reflect the approaches in their work. For DHH (ie. Rails) we have a
number of libs with closely labeled packages: ActionPack,
ActionMailer, ActiveSupport, ActiveRecord, etc. While _why's libs all
have highly independent packaging with clever names: Markaby, Hpricot,
Syck, etc. Now, I realize that different circumstances have certainly
led to this, eg. Rails is meant as a single comprehensive web-
framework, while Why's packages are more unique and reflect his
exceptional creatively, but either could have taken the other approach
if they so wished. And in my case (and surely some other large
projects as well), the distinction is not as straight forward.

So my question is, which is preferable? What criteria should one base
this decision on?

To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:

Aces Facets/CORE
Jacks Facets/BASE
Tapestry Facets/AOP
Comrade Facets/CLI
Fileside Facets/FS
Annote Facets/ANN

A couple of the names I'm not 100% sure about yet, but you get the
idea. I've been thinking about this a long time and haven't been able
to decide what direction to take for future development. It's most
significant impact, I suppose, is to the require namespaces ('facets/
aop/' vs. 'tapestry/' for example). The only other solid difference I
have found between them is that some libs don't mesh well with the DHH
style so those need to be completely separate anyway (for instance, my
modified redistribution of HTTPAccess2).

Thanks for any insights,
T.

29 Answers

Phillip Gawlowski

4/25/2007 7:04:00 PM

Trans wrote:

> To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
> or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:
>
> Aces Facets/CORE
> Jacks Facets/BASE
> Tapestry Facets/AOP
> Comrade Facets/CLI
> Fileside Facets/FS
> Annote Facets/ANN

FacetsCore
FacetsBase
FacetsAOP #(if that is an acronym)
FactesFileside
FacetsAnnote

or turn that around:
CoreFacets
BaseFacets
AOPFacets
FilesideFacets
AnnotateFacets

This seems to be the most pronounceable to me, and leaves room for
others. You should go with the Rails way, as you have a common framework
already (facets) in use, and keeping the name facets makes transition
easier for the existing user base.

My 0.02EUR

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan....
http://clothred.rub...

Rule of Open-Source Programming #5:

A project is never finished.

MenTaLguY

4/25/2007 8:11:00 PM

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:16:52 +0900, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> So my question is, which is preferable? What criteria should one base
> this decision on?

For me, the main criteria when deciding whether to give packages related names is the level of interdependence between them. If they're mostly all usable in isolation, there's no reason to give them related names.

-mental

Tomas Pospisek

4/25/2007 9:40:00 PM

khaines

4/25/2007 10:29:00 PM

James Britt

4/25/2007 10:48:00 PM

Nicholas Van Weerdenburg wrote:
> What are people "buying" so to speak?
>
> Do I want a "Facets", or an AOP framework? If I want AOP and CLI, do I want
> them bundled, or separate? What do I get for them being together? What does
> Facets add to them?
>
> Also, consider branding/marketing considerations. Publicity requires
> naming
> that enables discussion and clarity of what you are discussing. What is
> Facets? What kind of publicity (market discussion and understanding)
> does it
> generate? What is Facets/CLI? Can a name like that generate publicity?

WWSGD?

(What would Seth Godin do?)

--
James Britt

"The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with
computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity."
- Edsger W. Dijkstra

Ari Brown

4/25/2007 11:21:00 PM

On Apr 25, 2007, at 6:47 PM, James Britt wrote:

> Nicholas Van Weerdenburg wrote:
>> What are people "buying" so to speak?
>> Do I want a "Facets", or an AOP framework? If I want AOP and CLI,
>> do I want
>> them bundled, or separate? What do I get for them being together?
>> What does
>> Facets add to them?
>> Also, consider branding/marketing considerations. Publicity
>> requires naming
>> that enables discussion and clarity of what you are discussing.
>> What is
>> Facets? What kind of publicity (market discussion and
>> understanding) does it
>> generate? What is Facets/CLI? Can a name like that generate
>> publicity?
>
> WWSGD?
>
> (What would Seth Godin do?)

EWHWDO

(Exactly What He Would Do Otherwise)

Don't pick a weird name like Amerthrall (I just made that up). A good
bet is always something simple. For instance, CitiBank doesn't
really generate conversations like OOTS generates laughs, but it
sticks with people and is easy to remember.

JMT
~ Ari
English is like a pseudo-random number generator - there are a
bajillion rules to it, but nobody cares.

Jack Christensen

4/25/2007 11:42:00 PM

Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Trans wrote:
>
>> So my question is, which is preferable? What criteria should one base
>> this decision on?
>>
>> To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
>> or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:
>>
>> Aces Facets/CORE
>> Jacks Facets/BASE
>> Tapestry Facets/AOP
>> Comrade Facets/CLI
>> Fileside Facets/FS
>> Annote Facets/ANN
>
> Well, the names first column are library names that don't have any
> imediate meaning to me and moreover overlap with other libraries'
> names (Aces (distributed programming c-lib), Jacks (sound system),
> Tapestry (java-lib?)), so they might be funny and clever but not helpful.
>
> The second column pretty clearly says what a library is about.
>
> So I'd prefer use/helpful to funny/clever.
> *t
+1.
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Tomas Pospisek
> http://sour... - Linux & Open Source Solutions
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
>
--
Jack

Sammy Larbi

4/26/2007 11:31:00 AM

Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists wrote, On 4/25/2007 4:39 PM:
> On Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Trans wrote:
>
>> Like to know others general opinions on having a comprehensive library
>> vs. independent libraries.
>>
>> In my quest to make Facets' functionality available in some smaller
>> parts, I am left with hard choice. I think of it as the DHH vs. WHY
>> style question, b/c these two well known developers most clearly
>> reflect the approaches in their work. For DHH (ie. Rails) we have a
>> number of libs with closely labeled packages: ActionPack,
>> ActionMailer, ActiveSupport, ActiveRecord, etc. While _why's libs all
>> have highly independent packaging with clever names: Markaby, Hpricot,
>> Syck, etc. Now, I realize that different circumstances have certainly
>> led to this, eg. Rails is meant as a single comprehensive web-
>> framework, while Why's packages are more unique and reflect his
>> exceptional creatively, but either could have taken the other approach
>> if they so wished. And in my case (and surely some other large
>> projects as well), the distinction is not as straight forward.
>>
>> So my question is, which is preferable? What criteria should one base
>> this decision on?
>>
>> To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
>> or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:
>>
>> Aces Facets/CORE
>> Jacks Facets/BASE
>> Tapestry Facets/AOP
>> Comrade Facets/CLI
>> Fileside Facets/FS
>> Annote Facets/ANN
>
> Well, the names first column are library names that don't have any
> imediate meaning to me and moreover overlap with other libraries'
> names (Aces (distributed programming c-lib), Jacks (sound system),
> Tapestry (java-lib?)), so they might be funny and clever but not helpful.
>
> The second column pretty clearly says what a library is about.
>
> So I'd prefer use/helpful to funny/clever.

+1

Bob Showalter

4/26/2007 1:12:00 PM

On 4/25/07, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
> To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
> or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:
>
> Aces Facets/CORE
> Jacks Facets/BASE
> Tapestry Facets/AOP
> Comrade Facets/CLI
> Fileside Facets/FS
> Annote Facets/ANN

After thinking about this for about 3 seconds, I like the whimsical
names. _why is cool.

James Gray

4/26/2007 1:27:00 PM

On Apr 26, 2007, at 8:12 AM, Bob Showalter wrote:

> On 4/25/07, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
>> To clarify here is my specific scenario. I've narrowed it down, more-
>> or-less, to these Whyish vs. DHHish possibilities:
>>
>> Aces Facets/CORE
>> Jacks Facets/BASE
>> Tapestry Facets/AOP
>> Comrade Facets/CLI
>> Fileside Facets/FS
>> Annote Facets/ANN
>
> After thinking about this for about 3 seconds, I like the whimsical
> names. _why is cool.

It has been interesting hearing everyone say that the right side is
so much more helpful. I have heard Facets is a collection of
extensions and I'll assume CORE means extensions to Ruby's core, so
maybe I get the first one. The second one means nothing to me though.

I also don't think whimsical names have to be unhelpful. When I
ported File::ReadBackwards from Perl, I named my version Elif. I
guess you have to "get that" before it helps, but I had to know what
Facets was to even make guesses about the more helpful names. Seems
pretty comparable to me.

So, I guess I'm a rebel: I like cool names.

James Edward Gray II

comp.lang.ruby

DHH vs. WHY style